Tropical cyclone structure snapshots in global reanalysis datasets

This data repository contains snapshots of tropical cyclone structure in the ERA5 and CFSR global reanalyses, over the time period of 2012-2021. Each snapshot is a 20x20-degree box, centered on a tropical cyclone, of a particular field designated by the file name. Examples of fields included are the three-dimensional zonal, meridional, and vertical velocities (U, V, and W, respectively), precipitation rate produced by the model’s large-scale cloud scheme (LSRR) and convective parameterization (CRR), and thermodynamic fields such as temperature (T), specific humidity (Q), and instability (CAPE). Data are ordered chronologically by tropical cyclone track ID (developed using the TempestExtremes software package), and only snapshots between 0-30 degrees N latitude are included to avoid complications from extratropical interactions and flow reversal in Southern Hemisphere cyclones. The data were used to analyze asymmetric tropical cyclone structure relative to deep-layer vertical wind shear, to assess how this interaction is captured under relatively coarse resolutions characteristic of global climate models. Data are included in both MATLAB-specific .mat format, as well as .nc for use with other programming languages.